1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to hygiene and hand washing. More particularly, the device and method herein disclosed and described relate to an apparatus and a method used for easily, quickly and effectively teaching children and young adults to properly wash their hands, and having means to encourage ongoing hand washing through the playing of games, or forming of bubbles, while the user is concurrently properly washing their hands.
2. Description of Related Art
The present invention is concerned with the problem of teaching and encouraging children and adults proper techniques and time frames for hand washing and encouraging such over time. While hand washing is a simple habit which will help keep a person healthy, the benefits of good hand washing only occur when a person actually washes their hands frequently and does so in a proper fashion.
Hand washing, when exercised regularly and using a proper technique, is one of the best ways for a person to avoid illness. While being a simple habit, which requires only soap and warm water, hand washing is rarely done properly or frequently enough by most people to reap the full benefits.
On any given day people accumulate germs on their hands from a variety of sources. This can include many sources of germs such as direct contact with other people, contaminated surfaces such as tables, escalator handholds, foods, even animals such as the family dog or cat. Subsequent to these contacts, if people don't wash their hands frequently and use the correct technique, they can easily infect themselves by touching their eyes, nose, mouth, or food. Further, failure to wash their hands will render a person a carrier who spreads germs to others by touching those people directly or by touching surfaces which they contact such as doorknobs.
As a consequence of inadequate hand hygiene, especially in children, infectious diseases are commonly spread from one person to another. Everything from the common cold and flu to gastrointestinal disorders, such as infectious diarrhea, are easily communicated from one person to the next.
Inadequate hand hygiene and improper hand washing techniques also contribute to food-related illnesses such as, salmonella and E. coli infection. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as many as 76 million Americans get a food-borne illness each year. Of these, about 5,000 die as a result of their illness. Others experience the annoying signs and symptoms of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. This chilling statistic could easily be reduced if food handlers and people eating prepared food, washed their hands with proper technique and for sufficient time periods.
Good hand washing techniques, if taught to children, will be a habit they can maintain the rest of their adult lives. However, many parents are not present in the home for sufficient time to render education on proper technique. Further, many parents themselves do not have knowledge of the proper hand washing techniques and time durations required for proper hand hygiene. Further, many children resist instruction on proper hand washing technique, or actually employing such techniques for the proper duration of time, finding it boring or time consuming. Additionally, some children, even with the knowledge of proper techniques, still lack encouragement or inclination to wash their hands regularly.
This is a sorry predicament since hand washing is especially important for children who attend child care and schools. Children younger than 3 years, in child care, are at greater risk of respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases, which can easily spread to family members and others in the community. Consequently, to protect children's health, it is important that both parents and child care providers promote sound hygiene, including frequent hand washing several times a day—not just before meals. Further, with children who already know proper techniques, it is important to provide them a means to encourage hand washing such as providing components configured to concurrently provide entertainment such as a game or bubble blowing device, and wash the user's hands.
As such, there is an unmet need for a device and method that will enable parents and child caretakers to actually get the children to wash their hands frequently and properly. Such a device and method should be employable by young children without the need for adult supervision and provide a means of continued encouragement for such young users to wash their hands properly and for a sufficient duration. Still further, such a device should be fun and emulate activities in which modern children already participate for fun, such as video games to encourage constant and repeated use, and for smaller children, a device which washes their hands while they perform an activity required by the device to reach a desired outcome. Finally, such a device should be adaptable to encourage use frequently by older children and adults so that frequent hand washing for sufficient durations becomes commonplace, and an activity which is actually enjoyed.
In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the device and method herein in detail it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangement, of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways which will become obvious to those skilled in the art who read this specification. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting of the invention in any fashion.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention to instruct and encourage the art of hand washing. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including any such equivalent construction insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.